First Tube banner ad I've seen

Using BT or using the Tube



I was just browsing the Radio Times website and a moving Tube train caught my eye. I don't normally pay massive attention to banner ads but this one compared the number of people who "come back" to BT with the amount of people who use the tube each day (coming back to BT is nothing to do with bio-terrorism but re-connecting to British Telecom for their phone - for any visitors outside of the UK):







Two and a half thousand people a day apparently - enough to fill ten tube trains:







Or only three in the normal rush hour:







Reconnecting to BT may have more comparisons to travelling on the Tube. You probably wait a long time for them to turn up. They rarely turn up when they say they will. And after you've been using them a long time, you think "I must find an alternative" but can never really be arsed to do so.

London Underground Map for 2016?

What the Tube may look like in twelve years



Many thanks to Geoff Marshall again for sending me a PDF of a map for London Transport in 2016 which was in last night's Evening Standard.





There's tons of proposed new lines - Crossrail will be the only one effecting me (that's if I'm still in Richmond in 12 years time - hardly know what I'm doing next week some of the time)



Check it out - how much of it will actually happen is anyone's guess. You might also want to look at alwaystouchout (which has been on my right hand links for a while now) with the latest plans for London Transport and expected completion dates - although if the new lines are anything like the Jubilee Line Extension we could be in for a very long wait.

Overcrowding

Back to my old stomping ground of Soho this evening to meet a friend for a free meal. It was pretty chaotic at Holborn and there were many mumbling announcements about overcrowding and Piccadilly Circus station being closed due to overcrowding.



I was racking my brains trying to think why Dilly Circus should be closed, and also why Leicester Square had suddenly become exit only. It's a school night, why are hoardes of people here tonight? As I went up the only working escalator at Leicester Square, watching people opposite begrudingly following the little man on the British Heart Foundation ad and trying to make friends with the stairs, the penny still hadn't dropped.







It was only when I was shuffling at snails pace out of the station, that I remembered that someone had the bright idea to drive a series of Formula 1 cars through Piccadilly Circus on a school night just at the end of the rush hour. Nice one! If you like the idea of ear splittingly noisy cars zooming round Eros and Regent's Street, check out The Times' glowing preview of the event.

My Monk Moment

Tube Hygiene



I was heading off after work to get my teeth scrubbed by the dental hygienist and going down some escalators I felt something wet on the rubber pad. I resisted the urge to smell my hand (too awful to contemplate), or even wipe it on my jeans, it was probably something totally innocent. However, when I finally got to the dentist I legged it to the loo and washed my hands feeling like a commuting version of that obsessive compulsive private detective Monk.



If you actually spent your life thinking about what might be on the poles or the escalator pads, or the seats or doors you would never use the tube, or any public transport.



There was a massive urban legend going round years and years ago about what was on the seats of tube trains, and so many people believed the truth of this email that the London Underground had to go on the radio to say it was bollox.



You would smell a rat though wouldn't you? Although that was the point as quite literally the remains of two large rats, 6 mice, an unheard of fungus plus lots of human deposits including urine and vomit were supposedly found on the seats.



You hardly ever see anyone feel the seat before sitting down, even travelling late at night when the likelihood of vomit and urine is a lot higher. The only times people do feel the seat is if a seat is suspiciously empty in a very crowded carriage.

Yahoo ads

More top tube ads



You've probably seen the spate of Yahoo ads on the tube at the moment. Geoff Marshall sent me this one and I'll try and take some others on my journey







The idea behind this one is that it was taken at Vauxhall and the next stop is.....Pimlico



There's others on the tube where you can search for Sardines and people with Bad Hair. Watch this space.